Panorama has terrified me!

[oysterpots]

I'm not anywhere near any of the hospitals featured but the programme has just made me feel so like I won't be in control of what happens to me when I go into labour.

I know it's unlikely that anything bad will happen but is there anything we can do to make our own situations come with as little risk as possible?

Those poor people...

The midwives who were so horrible to me were certainly not stressed in the slightest. They were lounging the whole time behind their desk, from which they refused to move. They actually clearly resented moving their arms to make a phone call to the labour ward to see if I could be admitted. Then it was just 'Computer says no' followed by a challenging stare and total silence. I was crying a lot, btw. Which they lied about on my notes, saying I was fine.

God.

God yes, it's a whole new strand of documentary making. 'Today it was discovered that Robert Maxwell has stolen the pension fund of his employees. We talk to the victims, uncover the trail of fraud, and point out that Mr Maxwell put 10p in a charity box for the blind last week'

Oh, and when I complained I got a letter in reply so full of lies I thought I was losing my mind. I had to ask dh to look at the bits that covered the times when he was allowed to be with me to check that I hadn't gone mad (and I'm quite serious, sadly) and he confirmed that there were things in there that were, quite simply, lies. And the fact that I later found out from the head of midwifery that there had been other complaints (again lied about in my initial response) and that the midwives had compulsorily been transferred to day duties as it was clear they had formed themselves into a malicious clique, while going some way to helping me recover my equilibrium (I no longer cry every time I think about it, for example) also made me angry that they were lying to me, which means they were lying to other people. And nothing makes you feel worse is to add insult to injury - and make you doubt yourself.

Which is one of the reasons I react so strongly to suggestions that 'oh, it's all exaggerated' 'we musn't show what it is like because it will upset people' 'women who have a bad experience should put up or shut up because it might upset people'. The latter is a view expressed quite often on MN. It sometimes feels like the ultimate taboo.

I guess some kind of honest acknowledgement is the least you can hope for really. When my friend lost her baby after a bungled birth by the locum the attitude of the consultant (open, honest and desperately upset) did actually help more than anything.

Aloha - your experience sounded horrific and every womans' worst nightmare, nothing can take that away and good for you for pushing for change. However I dislike Panorama as I think it has become a bit 'tabloid', it doesn't give the full facts and sometimes I think it does need to give a more balanced viewpoint. So for example the MW that ranted in a cupboard perhaps they should have shown her discussing the pressures she is under to put it in context?

For what its worth (for the OP!) I had a wonderful straight forward birth at home and look forward to doing it all again.

Yes, honesty, a proper apology, no lies or cover up all help. I did a feature on medical negligence years and years ago and spoke to so many people who'd had their lives absolutly ruined (ie a woman - promising athlete, studing to be PE teacher, in her twenties who'd had her leg actually amputated because they thought, totally incorrectly, that she had bone cancer plus more) and all those who sued had zero interest in money. They all, quite separately, said that all they wanted was to find out the truth, get a proper apology and to prevent it from happening to anyone else.
I had to gatecrash a maternity services meeting to find out the truth about what happened to me. I'm not sure many people would do that. Which isn't to say I don't have the odd fantasy in which I am dancing on graves, btw. Not that I'd even know whose graves to dance on!

But it's what people mutter in cupboards that can expose exactly what they REALLY think. She wasn't going to go on camera saying, 'frankly I don't give a fuck about these women. I hate my job. I hate them. After years of it, I hate the horrible sound of them crying and yelling. I have no sympathy and couldn't care less if they were in pain all day and all night, I just want to get it over and go home', was she?

Aloha, what you went through sounds totally appalling. That shouldn't happen to anyone, I know people keep saying 4 out of 5 people are 'happy' with the care they receive, but that leaves 20% unhappy. That's 20 out of every hundred people who have babies, which in my view is quite a lot of unhappy and in some cases, traumatised, mothers. Yes, 80 others will be Ok. But I think 80% isn't enough.
Of course it all depends on why people are unhappy, whether they have good reason to be, and I would also suggest that some of the ones who answered 'happy' were possibly saying it was 'good enough - just about', rather than make a fuss - after all we are used to not getting everything we might expect from the NHS, so a few blunders or a bit of a wait while staff are overstretched, can now seem 'normal'. It's not a very accurate sort of test to base a proper argument on without further information.

No she wasn't but if that is what she really thinks then doesn't that also say a lot for the state of maternity services? I feel that we are shooting the messenger here, MW seem to be taking all the blame when we should be looking at how maternity services are run and resourced.

Yes, I think a lot of 'good' is actually, 'OK, well actually it was pretty horrendous, but it's over now and the baby is fine and I don't want to talk about it.'
It took me a YEAR to complain to the hospital properly, and I had weeks of panic attacks. At first I had this horrible thing where I couldn't close my eyes or drink water without feeling overwhelmingly claustrophobic. That was awful. I was fine beforehand - happy. I'm OK now, but I still sometimes experience intense claustrophobia when drinking water, and my tube phobia got so extreme I can no longer go on the tube at all. I tried the other day and literally thought I'd vomit with panic when the train slowed in the tunnel.
My experience was by no means the worst in terms of physical maltreatment and my daughter was fine and beautiful and perfect. I was 'just' very, very afraid and in a huge amount of pain and it was the lack of any kind of human sympathy or care that made it so bad.

Stripeyknickersspottysocks-you just did a good job reminding me why I left nursing. Not that I could get a job now anyway...there aren't any!Obviously because the wards are fully staffed. Ho Ho...

also, we can argue all day about what 20% people 'thought' and 80% did or didn't but surely the fact that only Poland has worse neonatal outcomes out of all the EU member states says something even more important about the state of our services?

Blimey. I missed the bit about Poland. That's really shocking. Anyone know any of the 'good' places that are fairly accessible within the next 5 weeks??! (Have bump will travel)

aloha, may I just ask you how you felt about giving birth before you went into hospital? were you scared before? had you had much antenatal care or done any other birth preparation? was it your first birth?
I have read another thread where you have discribed your horrific experience a while back. I'm so sorry that the birth of your dd was so traumatic and has had some serious lasting efects. How long ago was it?

please tell me to bog off if I am being too intrusive.

You are right that problems must be highlighted and you have my respect for speaking so openly about your experience.

I do, otoh, feel strongly that birth is so missrepresented in our country by the media and by the un-nessecary over-medicalisation of birth. all we see on the tv is dramatic images of childbirth, all we read about is problem after drama after trauma, and I feel that this goes a long way to add to mothers fear of childbirth, which in turn will lead to intervention and problems.

birth is, for the majority, the most natural process and something that is not to be feared, it is not feared by any other mammal, nor is it feared by many other cultures. however, when medical intervention is needed then thank god for it.

where does this fear come from?

(I agree stronly with the comment earlier that said the panorama program would have been very helpful to have offered advice on what women or their partners can do if they find themselves in such situations.)

Hire an independent midwife who will look after you throughout pregnany and accompany you to hospital. My feeling - I could be wrong, would love to hear others' views - is that they have the medical expertise that a doula might not. Can't deliver you in hospital but could spot something untoward and help deal with it - provided they are diplomatic enough! Most are.

just a wee issue of £3000 ish.....

would be nice though!

Preggerspoppet - it's true that the media does tend to show dramatic images of everything - birth, or hospitals, or whatever - people wouldn't watch it otherwise - but I don't think that has a massive effect on people's perception of childbirth, not IME anyway. (I could be wrong)
When I was expecting DS1 I didn't feel at all scared about labour, or hospitals. I'd never been an inpatient or had another child.
I assumed it would be a 'natural' occurrence as so many people had done it and survived...and as you mention, other mammals do it all the time, etc etc.
I'd watched many programmes about it (not quite like Panorama the other night) but these didn't make me scared - I was confident, felt sure I could do it without too much trouble, and had faith that I would be intervened with 'if necessary' and looked after in an appropriate and caring way.
When these expectations were demolished during the night of his birth, it was both a huge surprise and shock - I don't think I had particularly high expectations to begin with. Just the basic, sensible stuff like not being left alone with a beeping monitor which I didn't know how to interpret, after an epidural top up, and during transition - because of these factors I was drifting into blissful sleep and so was my mother, who eventually woke and ran to get someone (thank God) - and I also hoped someone would offer some relief from the continual vomiting I had to go through for an hour or more once on the ward.
I couldn't believe how little care there was. It was so sad because it totally destroyed my preious faith in the system. I believed, and wanted to believe, that we had a great NHS before this happened.

Oh and yes, I'd been to antenatal classes, the whole course...from those classes it also sounded like it would be Ok.
It was only the actuality that was so bloody awful!

I am with Aloha on this one.
I had a very traumatic time in hospital when I had ds by emergency c section.
He was undiagnosed breech, I had high bp and ds was distressed.
The first midwife that I saw when arriving at hospital was very friendly, she realised something was wrong and alerted a doctor.
I was surrounded by 3 (I think) doctors (?) and another midwife. It all went down hill from there. I wasn't told anything about what was happening. I was too scared and too trusting to ask. I just wanted pain relief which I only recieved after asking one trillion times, and then it was only gas and air. Finally I was taken for a cs. By this time I really was in a lot of pain and felt like I wanted to push, not sure if I was that far gone, but to this day I have no idea how far dilated I was at this time (or any other time).
Luckily ds was fine and I was fine.
I stayed in a miserable, dirty hospital, with no staff, no sleep and dirty blood stained sheets for 3 nights and all I wanted to do was go home. It is not my intention to scare new mothers either, but I do feel that the NHS maternity wards are in need of more midwifes, more money, more equpiment etc.
I could feel for these woman on panorama and it made me sad.
I totally agreed with one woman who said it has put her off having another baby in hospital.

flightattendant that is really shitty, total miss-management. Such a shame that you went in with such confidence. It makes me cross because some women might think that it was their fault and to be put off having more or to dread the next birth because of problems from miss-management in their first is very sad.

nice to here that you were so easy about the birth process beforehand.
It is not often I hear people say that. did you have any follow after what happened?

follow up

Hi PP - thanks for your sympathy. Well, no, I never did have any follow up. Afterwards I was way too tired and I have to say a bit traumatised, that like one of the women in that programme, I just wanted to forget about it. I did try and mention to the HV what had happened but as me and the baby were OK, you just have too many things to get on with to make a huge fuss - which is what it would have taken to get anywhere, it just seemed like I wasn't a special case as similar things happened to everyone else I spoke to. So there was no point as nothing was going to change whatever we said.
However now my time's getting near again, I am much more apprehensive and scared about having to go through any of that again. I've booked for a home birth but have a feeling that it won't take much for the MW to find a reason why I 'need' to be transferred. they don't seem to want to believe that I might actually go ahead with it! (again, underresourced department - don't blame the MWs at all - same reason I've 5 weks to go and only one more appointment, which is next week. They are booked to the gills.)